


I don't expect you to understand

by drarryangels



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Auror Harry Potter, Breaking Up & Making Up, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, Husbands, Injured Draco, Injured Harry, M/M, Potioneer Draco Malfoy, Professor Harry Potter, and then, but the injuries arent related
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-24
Updated: 2020-02-24
Packaged: 2021-02-28 02:29:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,065
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22886344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/drarryangels/pseuds/drarryangels
Summary: Draco ran his fingers over the veins crossing Harry’s knuckles. And waited. Antiseptic burned his nostrils and his lungs as he took one breath after another. He’d tried counting at first, reaching thousands of breaths before he succumbed into the endless passage of time. St. Mungo’s was a vacuum of nothing, of life, of everything, and death. Of Harry most especially.-Draco can't handle having his heart broken repeatedly while Harry nearly dies, mission after mission. At some point, there has to be an end to the pain. So Draco ends it himself.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter
Comments: 22
Kudos: 470





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for this prompt on Tumblr from @rockmarina!

Draco ran his fingers over the veins crossing Harry’s knuckles. And waited. Antiseptic burned his nostrils and his lungs as he took one breath after another. He’d tried counting at first, reaching thousands of breaths before he succumbed into the endless passage of time. St. Mungo’s was a vacuum of nothing, of life, of everything, and death. Of Harry most especially. 

According to Hermione, he’d been awake earlier for a minute or two, but had quickly collapsed back into the monotony of cold sleep. According to Ron, he’d asked for Draco. And according to Ginny, Draco needed to be here, next to Harry. 

He took another breath, starting back at one breath. 

Harry shifted slightly, his mouth opening just barely with his movement. Draco didn’t start or look up. By now, after three years of being married to Harry Potter, Draco was too familiar with this pattern. 

It always started off with smiles, tears. Reassurances that Harry would be back soon as he primly folded his robes into the sturdy black bag that Draco had bought him for their one year anniversary. Draco hadn’t meant for the bag to become Harry’s Auror travel bag. It was supposed to be for constant traveling and sporadic honeymoons. The two of them never went on any trips together. 

When there were only a couple of minutes until Harry’s departure time, a Portkey held close in his hand, Draco would finally come to him. Finally tell him that he loved him, kiss his face and hold him close, hope that Harry would stay on his own volition. Draco never begged for him to stay. Harry would be swirled away with a swarming blue light, and Draco would sit on the floor and cry. 

In the beginning, after they were first married, Draco leapt into action every time Harry left. There were chores to be done, Harry’s sweaters to sniff dejectedly and then put back in their drawers, potions work, new discoveries to be made. Wishes to ruminate over. Wishes about fussing children and holding his husband’s hand. 

By their two year anniversary, there was nothing to be done. Harry left, and Draco stayed. He sat alone for a week, and then he went back to work. Perhaps the choice Draco most admired in himself, aside from growing to love Harry, was choosing not to work at the Ministry. Having his own commission based business gave him the time for baths and self care days, allowed him the space to grieve when he needed to, miss Harry when he had nothing better to hold onto. 

So the pattern continued on when Harry would return home weeks, sometimes months, later. Inevitably, he could be found in St. Mungo’s, close to death, traumatized, injured, lost. As always, Draco would rush to his side and hold onto him until he was alive and well. Harry would promise not to rashly put his life in danger, and Draco would nod and kiss him even though he knew Harry was lying to himself and to him. 

Harry would get better, and then the process would start all again. 

This time around, things were different. Draco didn’t wait a week when Harry left. Draco didn’t rush to his side when he returned. He worked and kept his time busy with friends and taking care of himself. The only thing that dragged him to Harry’s side was Ginny Weasley shouting at him in front of a client to get to his husband before he died. 

Draco’s heart dropped and he left, and went to Harry like he always did. And just like always, Harry was unconscious and uncaring that Draco was back to cry over him yet again. 

So when he woke this time, Draco didn’t let out a gasping sob and scramble onto him. He let go of his hand and sat back as Harry blinked his way back to life. 

“Draco,” Harry rasped, a smile working slowly across his bruised cheeks. 

“Harry,” Draco said. He folded his arms across his chest, and Harry’s face dropped. 

“What’s wrong?” Harry asked, his hands twitching towards Draco. 

“You tell me.” Draco couldn’t say Harry’s name again. Couldn’t look him in the eyes. If he did, he would break and be in love, and his heart would fall apart all over again. Again, again, again. That’s all this was. A repeated pattern of waiting and being heartbroken and allowing himself to be crushed repeatedly by the person who had promised to protect him. 

“Look,” Harry sighed, as if trying to prepare himself for some long winded argument. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for this to happen, but-”

“No,” Draco cut him off. He stared at the pale blue, papery sheets covering Harry. “I don’t expect youto understand why I hate your job so much, but give me a chance to explain before you spout off some shite about saving the world.”

Green eyes widened, and Draco did not look up. 

“I have spent every waking moment from the day I was born looking up to you, Harry Potter,” Draco said sharply. He stood from the stiff hospital chair and stood over Harry, still without looking into his face. “Even before we met, I looked up to the famous Harry Potter, who held the world in his tiny hands.

“The world adored you, and so did I.” Out of his periphery, Draco could see Harry slowly shaking his head. “I won’t go into the suffering details of growing up as your arch nemesis, but I will say that falling in love with you and knowing you loved me back was, without a doubt, the best thing that ever happened to me.”

“Was?” Harry said in a small voice.

Draco ignored him. “Something I learned from loving you was that the most important thing, over anything or anyone else and their opinions of me, is to take care of myself.”

“Draco…” Harry said softly, brokenly. “Where is this going?”

“I need to take care of myself now,” Draco said, and he finally looked up. Immediately, he wished he hadn’t. Harry’s eyes filled up too much of his face, and thick tracks of tears ran back into the unwashed threads of his hair. Draco swallowed down the bile in his throat, and ignored every whirling feeling in his body telling him to hold on tighter. “I can’t keep falling into this cycle of losing you,” Draco said firmly. 

Harry’s breath turned ragged. 

Draco couldn’t look away. “You married _me,_ Harry, not the Ministry. Right now, it doesn’t feel like that. Actually, it hasn’t felt like that for years.”

“Draco, _no.”_

 _“_ I need a break from this,” Draco waved his hand above the scene taking place around him. “All this.”

And then Draco left. And he didn’t turn around when the the door closed behind him, muffling and eventually silencing Harry’s half spoken sobs and explanations. 


	2. Chapter 2

Draco swallowed. He’d thought, when he left Harry lying in St. Mungo’s, that this part would be easy. That his heart had been broken by Harry Potter too many times to be broken again. He was wrong. 

It had only been a week, and Draco was lost in his grieving for someone who was not dead. He hated himself for thinking it, but having Harry and nearly losing him to Auror missions felt better than not having him at all. It wasn’t fair to himself to think that, he knew. He should be independent, happy on his own. Mostly, he missed Harry.

Draco shook his head slightly and blinked into the sweet fumes furling up around his cheeks. If he wasn’t careful, he would explode this potion all over himself. _Felix felicis._ It wasn’t for him, although part of him was tempted to take some and see what would happen to his day. As it turned out, a tiny bottle of the golden potion was selling for nearly 50 galleons. With Valentine’s Day approaching, people were clamoring over the stuff, a _mortentia_ being banned nearly a year back. It was a professional advance Draco couldn’t afford to miss, no matter how many thoughts of Harry were clouding his focus. 

A quiet knock clicked through his brewing room. Draco finished his careful stir pattern before responding. 

“Come back later!” he called. “Brewing is in progress.”

“Draco?” a familiar voice came through the door. 

Draco stopped cold. Ice burned down his forearms and through his heart before he started to reality and quickly resumed his stirring before the bubbling gold liquid exploded.

“Not open for clients!” Draco shouted through the door, trying his best to control the trembles that kept clamoring through his body. 

“Draco,” the voice came again. “You know I’m not a client.”

Draco huffed. “You’ll have to come back later. I’m in the middle of a potion.”

“Can’t we talk?” The voice was so warm, so full of everything Draco loved. Dozens of memories pressed against the backs of his eyelids, and Draco blinked furiously, trying to push them all back. If he got lost in everything… all the memories, the moments, the touches, the laughs…. well, this potion could be considered toast. Already, it was turning too dark at Draco’s unsure administrations. If he wasn’t careful, this potion would be all over the room in a matter of seconds. 

Draco shook his head harder. He’d paid too much for these ingredients and had too many clients waiting on this potion to ruin this. 

“Go away, Harry,” he snapped. The sound of Harry’s name in his mouth startled him. He dropped the ladle into the potion, and bubbles of thick hot liquid burst over the top of the cauldron, splattering all over Draco’s face, arms, and chest. 

Draco yelped and quickly tried to cut off the sounds of pain emitting from his mouth while his flesh sizzled and burned. 

“Draco?” Harry’s voice was louder now. “Are you okay?”

Draco shook his head while he watched the pale stretches of his flesh transform into something inhuman and monstrous. He couldn’t scream or move, the pain was too great. Before Draco could drag himself to his neutralizing table, he was falling to the floor, completely out of control of the use of his limbs. 

It took nearly a full minute before his brain started truly processing what was happening to him. Horribly curved spikes dug under his flesh, ripping into what Draco knew was his veins, burning him up from the inside out. He tried not to scream. He really did. He wasn’t ready to see Harry yet, even if he might be dying. If it meant he would be paralyzed for the rest of his life, he didn’t mind putting off his surely dreadful reunion with Harry until another day. Another year maybe, when all these feelings had passed. 

Draco knew that was an illusion. Everything he felt for Harry was infinite. He was his love, and had been since the day they had met in Madame Malkin’s. It was out of control and would never end. Even so, thinking it might be true consoled Draco slightly as the properties of ashwinder egg, a crucial ingredient in _felix felicis_ , absorbed through his skin and throughout his body. 

Dimly, Draco heard a door slamming open and someone calling his name. Harry, surely. He had been on the other side of the door, Draco knew. But all that mattered at the moment was the cool stone floor against his face and the realization that however beautiful the potion for luck was, it’s truth was cruel and burning. 

There were arms around him, and then Draco was crying. Really crying. Not the few tears that had ruined a Pepper-Up potion Draco had made earlier that morning. Not a slight dribbling of onion induced tears. Full on sobbing. Inside his body, fire was catching alight, turning him inside out. Draco could think of nothing else. 

But then someone’s hands were tilting his head back and pouring a cool potion into his mouth, and everything came into focus while the pain slowly subsided. Dark skin and curly hair pieced together in Draco’s vision to form a very familiar person. 

“Draco?” Harry whispered, still holding on tightly to Draco, who had somehow ended up sprawled across Harry’s lap on the floor. 

Draco closed his eyes. “What did you do?” He knew Harry would know what he meant, and that he wasn’t accusing him. 

“You have an antidotes shelf,” Harry said quietly. “I know how to read.”

“Thank you,” Draco said, and struggled to sit up. “Now please leave. I need to attend to my wounds.”

“Your _wounds_?” Harry laughed incredulously. “Draco, you need to go to St. Mungo’s _now_. You can’t see yourself, you-” Harry’s voice broke. “Your skin.”

A gentle finger edged over the burnt skin exposed by Draco’s rolled up sleeves. The finger disappeared, and quickly became known again as it brushed over Draco’s collarbone, which was also severely burnt. 

“No,” Draco said harshly and shoved Harry away from him. The floor was hard when he fell on it, but nothing hurt more than being touched by Harry when he knew that it would only crush him again. “Please don’t touch me.”

“Draco,” Harry’s voice was cracked and teary. He sat back on his knees and held his hands out, like he was reaching for something reverently precious, but knew he could not touch it. “Please. I miss you. So much. Like someone has ripped my heart out and-”

“No,” Draco looked at Harry. His beautiful face, flushed and streaked with salt. “Do you need me to say it again?” Draco took a deep breath and hauled himself to his knees using the edge of his work table. “I can take care of myself.”

“But, Draco, you’re hurt.”

“Not hurt enough to need you.” Draco knew the moment he’d said it that he’d gone too far. That he’d stretched this lie too far. Harry wouldn’t know he didn’t mean it. Harry never knew how to pick up little cues like that. Draco always knew when people were lying and hurting but wouldn’t say anything. Draco was the one who could tell when Harry was feeling too awful about the world himself to be kind to anything. Harry used his heart to see, though, not logic. 

Draco didn’t try to take it back or say anything else to help. He kneeled, leaning heavily on the table, as Harry cried. Some sick part of him thought that Harry might get a taste of what it felt like to be Draco, always lost and wondering if his husband would ever return to him. Some kinder part of him urged him to go to Harry and forgive him and apologize, and then hug him so tightly that he forgot how to breathe. 

He only sat and tried not to black out from the festering of his flesh until Harry looked up from the ground and met Draco’s eyes. 

“Draco, I’m sorry,” Harry forced out between silent sobs. “I’m supposed to protect you. I promised I would. Always.” There was silence again while Harry swallowed his own tears. “I didn’t do that.”

“I know you didn’t,” Draco said. He slid down to the floor and flopped against the table. He couldn’t hold himself up any longer. Not from Harry, and not from this bloody potion.

Harry was right in front of him and apologizing, and _oh Merlin_ , why hadn’t he let this happen sooner. Harry’s hair was longer than it had been when he had last seen him, only a week ago. Curly and dark and wildly taking over his face. And his cheeks, ruddy red and beautiful and ready to be kissed. His form, all slumped over when it should be tall. 

Draco missed him. So much that it hurt his stomach. He didn’t want to admit it. Didn’t want to admit it that this part of his life was so far out of his control, but it was because it was in Harry’s hands. All of it. His heart, his soul, his mind, his body. Truly, he belonged with Harry. Being away from him hurt. Too badly to consider. 

Draco knew, deep down, somewhere between his rib cage, that things had to change in order for them to work. He knew that he couldn’t put himself through another three years of Harry’s death defying missions. 

Harry knew it too. 

“Draco… love, please,” Harry mumbled, “I love you. Too much. My heart hurts being away from you. It always has. On all those missions, I- I was lost without you. I loved my job. I really did. But I love you more.”

Draco held out his arms to Harry, and Harry scooted across the flagstones until he was almost on top of Draco. His arms came around Draco carefully, barely touching him. Draco brought his face closer to Harry’s and pressed his lips into Harry’s cheek. 

“I love you, Harry,” he said. It was the only thing in life that would always be true. 

“Maybe it took seeing that potion exploding all over you to really know it,” Harry stuttered. “To get some grip of what it feels like to watch the person you are so irrevocably in love with be hurt like that.” Draco balanced his forehead to Harry’s. “I’m sorry. So sorry.”

Draco shook his head, his nose knocking into Harry’s. 

“I spoke to McGonagall,” Harry said, tears and snot and hope skittering down his face. “The Defense job is open.”

Draco leaned back abruptly and held onto Harry’s shoulders. “What are you saying?”

Harry smiled wetly. “I’m going to be a professor.”

Draco didn’t care how badly his skin was still residually burning, or how much it would hurt to crash into someone so forcibly that gravity lost its hold and they went tumbling back. Harry would take him to St. Mungo’s. 

Harry was holding him tight, and kissing him all over his face, and now Draco was crying. He was so relieved. _Relief_. What a strange word. Brought about by a renewed promise to stay by Draco’s side. Draco never would’ve asked Harry to quit his job as an Auror. It wasn’t his place. If Harry loved it, then Harry should have it. But Draco couldn’t lie to himself. This was better. This meant keeping Harry close and loving him for as long time stretched on, and it was better. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to the wonderful people on Tumblr who encouraged me to write this!


End file.
